Hair: A 10-Minute Free-Writing Practice

By Christine Swint
Whatever grows out of this pen, the ink, the spidery words trailing across the page, grow out of me like the hair sprouting from my scalp. The words are connected to my brain only in the instant the pen touches the paper, the same way that my hair is a part of my body only on the surface, at the follicle.

I often wonder why humans have so little hair covering their bodies, when our primate cousins have fur aplenty. In his book, The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris theorized that for a while, and I guess he meant a long while, humans became water mammals, losing most of their thicker body hair because it wasn’t needed, keeping only the hair on their head for warmth. But what about pubic hair? Why would that hair have stayed on the body while rest of our skin kept only peach fuzz?

Maybe hair in places other than the head is not as sexually attractive to humans, at least not on the female form. Think how much money women, and some men, spend on ridding their bodies of unwanted hair: laser removal, electrolysis, Persian threading, waxing, tweezing, chemicals that shrivel the hair at the root, and of course, time-honored shaving.

As I grow older, the faint down of a young man’s moustache has appeared above my lip, which I remove every six weeks or so. I also have my eyebrows waxed. I’m not going to reveal anything else here — I’m writing to the bone, but not the bikini line!

I’ve tried threading, because it’s such a clean, non-invasive way of removing hair. It works like a rotary lawn mower, gently swiping the hair off the skin.

Humans do love hair, but we’re selective about where we want to see it.
Links

Christine Swint studied English and Spanish at the University of Georgia, and Spanish literature at Middlebury College in Spain. She writes poetry, fiction, and personal essays in Spanish and English. She lives in metro Atlanta with her husband, two teenage sons, and two dogs, Raf and Duffy. After teaching in the public high school for many years, she now teaches yoga in local community centers.

You can read more of Christine’s writing at her primary blog, mariacristina. Christine also keeps a blog — called Yoga Dreams — about her experiences as a teacher and practitioner of yoga.
-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – HAIR

33 Responses

Absolutely right on the selectiveness thing… it’s really strange how hair can be something beautiful or something unpleasant depending mostly on where it is! Interestingly the same sort of idea came out for me when I tried this writing practice.

lirone, I felt the same way when I saw Christine’s writing practice. I think I had one sentence in my own writing practice on this topic that had to do with women’s body hair versus men’s body hair. But somehow my brain elected not to go there (maybe that’s my version of – words are connected to my brain only in the instant the pen touches the paper. 8)

Christine, brave writing practice. I’m thankful you wanted to share it. For some reason, people are under the mistaken notion that women do not have any body hair (or shouldn’t have any body hair). Will it really bust things open for them to know that women and men can often have the same amounts of less hair/more hair? It’s just that women are confined to society’s notions that they need to hide theirs or scrape it off.

It’s something I’ve had to struggle with most of my life. Unwanted stares, being called he instead of she (though my friends agree, I’m definitely the most dainty of them all!). I’m old enough now where I just don’t care what other people think. But this issue can be hard when we are younger and feeling more pressure to conform.

You bring up some really interesting points about evolution. And what is sexually attractive to other people. And then, you have to wonder, are we culturally conditioned to be attracted to a certain look?

It was refreshing to see you write about body hair, Christine. This topic was so rich for me — I wanted to take it many places, and body hair was definitely one of them.

I have that upper-lip hair thing going on, too. I think it’s a getting-older thing, and I remember now so well all the women in my childhood — aunts, my mom’s poker friends — mostly old lady (or seemed to me at the time) Chicana women with big hairs growing in unwanted places. Hairs sprouting on out of beauty marks and moles, big hairs on the edges of their upper lips. Little did I know I’d be in the same place some day. I joke with my sister-in-law and others — tell me if you see a big ol’ hair growing out of my chin or this beauty mark or where ever, because weeks will go by and I’ll forget to check.

Another thing, I’m really leaning toward just letting it be. I mean, when the moustache thing first started, my reaction was to pluck. But then I worried, man, they’re just going to come back thicker and stronger. So, I’m struggling with this.

Good point, QM. (We must have been typing our comments at the same time.) Some people love body hair. Others don’t. For some it’s visual. Others — all about feel. This notion that women shouldn’t have hair in certain places — well, it’s all personal choice, but I have my concerns about preferences for no hair and what that means. (Sorry, Christine — didn’t mean to take your post where I was going there.)

Yes, lirone, the double standards are never fun. I guess that’s one area we could go on forever!

ybonesy, I totally get where you’re going with that. And at the extreme, it’s really not pleasant to think about. But it’s happening. There are personal choices – and then all the crazy obsessions that people have.

I agree with you about age, too, and not caring as much. When I was younger, I would keep all the hair as a public statement that it was my right to have it as much as the next person’s (those pesky double standards again). It was also a political issue for me. But these days, I do what is comfortable. And that sometimes means, I feel better shaving, especially in the summer when it’s just cooler (temperature-wise) to shave.

There was so much more I could have written about this topic-hair or no hair, or not enough in the right places. It’s really bizarre. And then there’s the whole idea of should I dye my hair? I decided not to, so in that way, yb, I’m like you. I’m leaving well enough alone. It’s a personal choice, but society tries to define our choices for us. Life is high school.

I think I’d like to research this topic more, and write a post about the cultural evolution of hair. I have heard of a book by a Jungian analyst that researches the importance of hair to adolescent girls.

Christine, that would be a great post. It’s fascinating. And hair means different things in different cultures. There are also the connections between religion and hair. You could probably write a whole book on the cultural evolution of hair.

I wanted to ask, as the mother of two teenage boys, do you notice any pressures around hair for them? Or the need to conform in some way around their hair? Or maybe just in general – what observations have you had about the way boys might need to conform in adolescence.

it’s so nice to see you here and i’m learning lots i didn’t know about you.🙂 and i’m not just talking about hair. i’m reminded of the yoga instruction and the writing in two language facts that i had dropped off my radar screen. you’re a very interesting lady and writer and — it seems — appropriately groomed.

i agree that it’s a brave subject to approach in a public free write. what a good example to set for the rest of us!

QM, your recall reads like a found poem, where you take someone elses prose and break up the lines! It’s neat to see my words like that, from someone else’s perspective.

PDW, I’m 47, so I’ve had some time to explore a lot of life. I traveled and studied a lot before I had my children. I even wrote a hair narrative way back when. It was fiction, but it was the story of my life seen through the length of my hair. Maybe I’ll type it up and post it.

QM, as far as my teen boys go, they both think about hair, but don’t feel pressured too much.

My 14-year old had a HUGE mohawk last summer, which we spiked up with beeswax. He plays the electric guitar in a punk ska band. But he’s a good kid. I let him experiment. I mean, it’s “just” hair, right?

My eldest son, 17, has a long shag. At his school they had “No-Shave November” as a kind of joke, but he kept shaving because he said he didn’t want anyone to know he doesn’t need to shave very often yet. So yes, there’s some pressure, but he seems okay with it.

The hair in your free-writing practice is sounding like the spidery space material that holds “matter” in suspension…. maybe thoughts are stretched out in that field too. Thanks for posting!

My friend just allowed her 15 year old son room to start making his own decisions. She gave him money to go get his hair cut without her and dropped him off at the mall. He came back bald. Bald. I suppose 15 is the best time to be experimenting and shocking….maybe we never stop wanting to shock?

Christine, another cool thing about RECALL is you can grab a line from it, and do another Writing Practice on that line as your Writing Topic. Sometimes that can be helpful, especially if you are going to continue to write on the evolution of hair.

I hope you post your life/hair narrative on your blog sometime. What a great concept.

Your sons sound pretty hip. I like mohawks. I can’t stop staring at them because they’re so cool looking. (I think Liz used to have one, but I never saw it. Must have been a while ago). I agree, it’s just hair. It’s going to grow back. “No-Shave November” – sounds like a quite progressive school.

Hey, I had one other question – how do you keep all your writing projects going? Don’t you have a 3rd blog on teaching as well? And also help to administer a couple of poetry blogs. I feel like I have my hands full with this one!

lirone, what can I say, I was a rebel of a teenager. 8) I had more energy for making a point back then. Now it’s comfort all the way! Thanks for the link.

BTW, Christine, I’d never heard of Persian threading before learning of it in this post. Very interesting!!

The whole industry around hair and nails astounds me. I used to spend a lot to get the best haircut from the best stylist in Albuquerque. I also went to him for about 12 or 14 years, which kind of blows me away — my trust in him.

On the topic of kids and their hair, I think it’s great when they can break out and do cool things with their hair. It says something about their self-confidence. My daughter got her hair cut short, but besides the occasional cut, she’s not that interested in her hair. She often goes to school with bed head, which I kind of cringe at because I know how much things like that stand out for mid-school-aged kids. But she’s pretty much oblivious to it, at least for now.

I have the opposite issue. In the past few years, my hair has thinned significantly. Each time I shampoo, I stare morosely at the drain basket at what was once on my head. Not enough estrogen? Too much testosterone? A hormonal melee or insidious hair dye side effects? I used to think comb-overs were for men, but lately, I find myself in front of the mirror experimenting with different ‘do’s.

As for facial sprouts, I think the reason we usually get farsighted as we age is so that we cannot notice our own, nor our partner’s, bumps, strays, or pocks. At least there’s one named benefit to the aging cycle. Cheers!

TC, bald is a statement too, right? In Spain, the last time I was there, I noticed many of the younger men who were balding went straight to the shaved head. It used to be that once a man started going bald, he’s start wearing the classic beret, or boina as they call it in Spain.

QM, I started a blog that was a ficticious diary about the life of a single school teacher, but I stopped writing it when I went to Texas for the yoga training. I’ve sort of let it just linger in cyberspace. I might post weekly installments as stories on my current blog. It’s fun to write a diary as someone else, almost like acting.

The other blog I help with is readwritepoem, a collaborative poetry site. We post articles on poetic forms, books to read, the process of writing, and writing prompts. It’s fun. There are so many people working on it that it’s not too much work.

yb, my frined who married a man from Iran told me about Persian threading. It’s amazing- zip, zip, zip, and all hair disappears. It stings just a little…

I read Lirone’s post on hair- it’s really lovely. She mentions a story about a bridge made of a single strand of hair. I looked up the tale-it’s a British folktale called Mollie Whuppie. What a great name!

Julie, losing the hair on my head would lead me to invest in colorful scarves and zany hats. Your point about not noticing our partner’s imperfections is well taken too. If you don’t see mine I won’t see yours! It’s a good attitude to have.

I just also read lirone’s post on hair — now this is five writing practice posts I’ve read with Hair as the topic, and each one goes off in a different direction. I love it. I love how this particular topic was meaty in and of itself. Other topics might be the impetus to start the pen moving yet the content diverges from the topic, but Hair actually got the pen moving AND the words were all about Hair.

I also realized how much our obsessions with hair, our perceptions of hair, our worries, our experiences — they’re universal. Hair color, body hair, strands of hair left behind, curly versus straight hair, short versus long — sheesh, what is it about hair? Would fingernails be the same? How about skin? Noses anyone?

I agree it’s fascinating that while people take the topic in completely different directions, some similar ideas come out.

Our hair does seem closely connected with our identity, our sexuality, and the way we portray ourselves to the world – perhaps particularly so for women.

It’s part of our physical nature, and I think in some ways it reminds us that humans are animals too. I think a lot of the drive towards complete hairlessness is a way of denying that animal nature – unfortunately in the process denying its vitality and sensuality. But then on a very human level, because it frames the face it’s very obvious to others and affects how they look at us.

Also, while the colour and texture of our hair is inherited, and so linked to our family (like Robin’s post), it’s also something we can change by the way we style it – so defining our own identity. Perhaps if we could readily change the shape of our noses to express our images of ourselves we’d feel the same about them!😉

Your wool-gathering led me to a beautiful metaphor for all kinds of things. I was particularly drawn in by the idea the hair is a part of the body for a very short while (the cuticle); where you went from there kept me intrigued.

Fabulous!

I recall reading a story in Omni (remember the long-defunt science-science fiction magazine?) about a girl whose hair took on a life of its own. It was mesmerizing. I’d love to read your hair story.

paisley, like QM has said in other posts on free-writes, I tend to have the thoughts stirring in my mind for a day or two before I write. The trick is not to censor when the words come out, but even here I did a tiny bit.

lirone, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how we as humans really ARE one of the Earth’s menagerie of animals. We just don’t speak the language of the other creatures around us. But we can try!

jo, you crack me up! You went closer to the bone than I allowed myself. My upbringing sometimes gets the better of me. There’s a lot I’m working on unlearning.🙂

Deb, I agree about this as a prompt for readwritepoem. What do you say, QM and YB? We could link here, to let writers listen in to the previous conversations, and even let writers know about the Daily Haiku, the photographs, etc… Sounds like another collaboration in the works. Let me know what you’re thoughts are. I’m really digging this whole hair thing, and I’m so pleased to see my poet posse coming by!

Yes, we’d very much enjoy being able to read the poems and other pieces of writing inspired by the writing topic “Hair.” We don’t normally ask writers to link to us when they write on a topic we’ve published on red Ravine, but might we do so in this case? We’d love to see what the topic generates.

So, Deb, if you write a post on readwritepoem suggesting your readers write about Hair, please point them to the red Ravine post WRITING TOPIC – HAIR (LINK). Also, ask them to link to that post, too (assuming they link to your post) so that we and our readers can also read their poems.

I’m now curious, since I don’t write a lot of poetry, how do poets use Writing Topics? Is the topic simply a starter, or does it inform the content? Does that depend largely on the topic itself? Any insights are much appreciated.

yb, I would probably be the one to write the prompt, and I’d be thrilled to link to the topic article by slowalker. It’s important to link, not only to give credit, but to widen the community, as red Ravine does so well. I’ll let you know when it’s written, and then when it goes up.

Is it a hair “free writing practice” or a “Hair-free” writing practice? Sorry.

Such a great topic and comments, I don’t feel qualified to even participate, especially at this late date. I loved the QM recall that turned your writing into poetry.

We truly are a troubled society . . . we are losing our hair just as our offspring are sprouting it . . . changing genders? Never!

I have a great new toy that I highly recommend: it is a set of tweezers that has a light! Now I can sit in front of my super-high magnifcation mirror and tweeze away in the privacy of my home. Why give strangers the satisfaction . . .

One of the funniest things that I have ever read was about the lady who performed a home wax job gone bad . . . I will conclude with a friendly link to her sad, sad story . . . this is not the original author, whoever she is, she is my hero . . .🙂

I love, love, love super-high magnification mirrors. If I had one, I’d probably be picking at my skin all day long. One of my bad habits. Thankfully, without a mirror it’s too hard to see, so I don’t pick.

I know, you didn’t need to know that.

I’ll have to read the story in the link you provided. Ouch. Hot wax, at home. Have you ever done ear candling? I should write a story about my family experiences (siblings and parents) with ear candling. Bizarre yet true stories having to do with hot wax.

YB, I was introduced to the ear candles about 10 years ago at a local outdoor flea market. They are unbelievable! J suffers from built up wax deep down & the first time we used the “candles” we felt kind of silly! But the results are real! I used to know of a shop locally that sold them, but they closed down & I haven’t given them much thought since then!hmm…
By the way, a super-high magnification mirror will never be found in my home! D

I’m sure I’ll never get one either, for the reason I mentioned. BTW, one of my memories of my mom is her in front of her little mirror in the kitchen, plucking eyebrows and, well, I won’t talk about the blackheads ; – ).

I, too, am a great believer in ear candling! They work wonders, and I am overdue for a treatment. But what is so silly about my experience is, I introduced the idea to my family members, and one holiday — was it a Thanksgiving or Christmas — we spent hours all taking turns lying one the floor and getting our ears candled. One after another, my dad included. It took hours. My brother’s house was filled with smoke. It was a scene!

YB, I’m still laughing about the visual of your family members being candled! You know, the ones I bought were beautiful, some paisly designs, etc., but how silly looking to have one sticking in your ear! And for anyone who has never tried them before, be certain to have a glass of water handy when you do! D

My sister (who comments here once in a while) and I both like to do 2 per ear. So, the year after our big family candling experience, we candled at her house. Me, her, her best friend. We did 2 candles per ear. Ours went fine, but when I did her best friend, she said she felt hot wax slipping back into her ear. I think that’s a possible problem, and I felt so bad, because, well, yikes. Can you imagine??

She’s fine now, but I felt terrible about having possibly tilted the candle too far in her ear!